Thursday, November 29, 2012

Aurélie


Dupont. Oh my.

An interview, and a study. (Both in French, but so what?)



And Aurélie Dupont in George Balanchine's Rubies.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Untold

Oliver Stone's "Untold History (formerly called Secret History) of the United States" premiered this week on cable television, leading off with what World War II was really about (the Soviets won it); and celebrating the great (and forgotten) Henry Wallace. Terrific start. Stone narrates.



The rest of the ten-part series can be followed at Showtime. (Or here.)

This morning, the director was with Amy Goodman.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Come On Along


It's the 100th Anniversary of Irving Berlin's first big hit! Here's a coupla neat versions. :-)

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Dead Enough?

Ignore the empty hustler Obama? -- oh, yeah. Ignore Chris Floyd? Never.

Floyd with the best post-reelection essay so far.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Tree Trunks


The most adorable of all creatures in Adventure Time's adorable (and subversive) post-apocalypse world is a sweet little elephant with a Southern drawl called Tree Trunks. She scampers through many episodes, baking delicious apple pies for her friends in the Candy Kingdom. She is featured twice, where she searches -- with the help of Finn & Jake -- for the ultimate pie filling: the Crystal Gem Apple. Shockingly, at the end of part one, when she bites into the found apple, Tree Trunk explodes. In the second part, called Crystals Have Power, all things come together.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Goodbye to All That

The most sickening part of last night -- aside from finding out that Spielberg's latest piece of bathos is a movie about, get this, Abraham Lincoln -- was having to wade 6 or 7 hours through the mediots cesspool. God, what a stench. And how pro-Obie they were: calling states for Obama where Romney was still ahead (Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin) in a bum's rush to Total Victory.

The basis of their bias was clear: He is They: Nowhere People with little humanity and ground zero talent beyond psychopathic ambition and the "gift" of sniffing out the right career op at the right moment.

And the babble about the coming Grand Bargain, in which Offal will complete the project of reversing everything the Democrats accomplished in the 20th Century. And his heroic achievement of Uniting the Democratic Party by selling out on everything it had once stood for.

Out.

And now, Mr. Floyd:
Well, you got your lesser evil. Now all we can do is hope that he will do less evil than he did in his first term. Bitter experience, and a nodding acquaintance with history -- and human nature -- mitigate mightily against such a hope, but we are where we are, and that's all we've got.

In any case, I am eagerly looking forward to seeing how all our super-savvy lesser-evilist progressives "hold Obama's feet to the fire" in the months to come, as they promised so solemnly to do. You remember, don' t you? How they savagely condemned anyone who so much as thought about not supporting Obama, while pledging to unleash their righteous rage at his crimes and follies -- just as soon as he was safely returned to the White House. I'm sure they'll come down hard on him. Why, I can see it all now.....
"OK, now the inauguration's over, let's get to work. First of all, these drone attacks are criminal atrocities killing scores of innocent people. We can organize a protest march to--"

Super-savvy prog: "
Hush your mouth!  We can't undermine the president right now. We've got to help the Democrats get control of the House in 2014! Or do you want the evil Rethuglicans to keep blocking everything? Wait until after the mid-term elections, then we'll put the pressure on."


***
"OK, we took back the House in 2014 with a slate of anti-abortion, pro-war, entitlement-slashing, deficit-hawk, Blue Dog Democrats. You said it was the savvy thing to do, the lesser evil to replace the anti-abortion, pro-war, entitlement-slashing, deficit-hawk Republicans. NOW can we go after Obama -- for the state terrorism of the drone campaign, the 'extrajudicial' murders, the 'disposition matrix,' the torture and imprisonment of the truth-teller Bradley Manning, the support of the brutal coup and murderous repression in Honduras, the fracking, the off-shore drilling, the 'Grand Bargaining' with Social Security and Medicare, the protection of CIA torturers, the global arms dealing, the growing prison population, the growing economic inequality, the ever-more draconian 'security apparatus', the bail-out of the oligarchs and the--"

Super- savvy prog: "Bite your tongue! We can't undermine the president right now! It will hurt the chances of his Democratic successor if we make Obama look bad! Or do you want Paul Ryan to be president? What kind of selfish moral purist are you?"
Oh yeah, they're really gonna make Obama sweat. Things will be different this time around. I can't wait!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Go

Saturday, November 3, 2012

End Game